complexion [ME] This came via Old French from Latin complectere ‘embrace, comprise’. The term originally referred to a person’s physical constitution or temperament once believed to be determined by a combination of the four bodily *humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. This gave rise, in the late 16th century, to the meaning ‘natural colour and texture of a person’s skin’ as a visible sign of this temperament. Complex [M17th], something that comprises many things, is from the same source.